Julis watched dead branches sway with a mild wind as Adrian suddenly set off.
His gaze dipped back to the burn site, fostering a gaze as calm as a sea of cider.
Adrian hadn't answered his question, though Julius didn't need it
The Hydra was most likely fed, and as Julius reached into a bucket of his own knowledge, he reflected on the Hydra's three pairs of red eyes.
At the moment the Hydra was laying peacefully, with a tail like an obsidian whip, as long as a tree and as thin as a human arm, with an even thinning tip.
It's three pairs of eyes were all closed, each head bundled up together like a happy family as it slept peacefully.
Though behind those pitch black eyelids were hazard-yellow eyes.
Without the exact details, Julius threaded a web of comprehension.
The lack of clarity, sharp to others, was like a traversable mist to Julius Sparrow.
Leaving him only with a hunch.
Someone poisoned the Hydra.
"If the Hydra was fed, then whatever it ate was poisoned, similar to how I tampered with the cafeteria biscuits."
Julius was roaming a world of thought while he distantly stared down the charred remains of the stable,where a patch of red stained grass lay as a reminder of the earlier disaster.
"A substance that could affect an Hydra…"
Julius's mind conjured several spinning lines of thoughts.
According to this draft of thought:
This person had a mastery of alchemy
This person came to the stables before Adrian.
This person may have encountered the caretaker, since his whereabouts were unknown.
Meanwhile another line of thought sporadically webbed in the distance of his deduction.
"Did killfaux neutralise this poison?" An image flashed in Julius's mind, remembering the Hydra's eyes flicking from the volatile red to the bright yellow after digesting Julius's procured biscuit.
Meanwhile the main web of thought continued.
"Whoever made this had to have known the results of such a substance, knowing the Hydra would go berserk and attack."
"Who would want the caretaker dead?" Julius questioned rhetorically
Of course no one would kill a caretaker, they were so unimportant in the grand scheme of things.
"Someone wants me dead?" Julius questioned again, his mind sporadically summoning bubbles of thought in an attempt to find connections.
"But in order to cook that poison and still have enough time to tamper with the Hydra's food, they would've needed to have known Adrian and I would be sent to a Hydra detention in advance."
Not every detention was about taking care of a god eating monster, take Fenrir for example, when Adrian fought Julius in the cafeteria, Fenrir had been held in a classroom instead of being allowed out for lunch.
Just like it took time for Julius to cook killfaux, whoever this person was would also need time for their own chemical creations.
Since Julius concluded the food was tampered with before Adrian arrived, that means they had a small window of time to both make the poison and deliver it.
However that window increases largely if you consider the time Julius and Adrian spent in the headmasters office.
While the two were occupied, this mysterious person would have more than enough time to easily create the poison and travel to the stable, since no one would be there to intercept him.
But that's impossible because this time can only be taken advantage of if the person knew for sure that Julius and Adrian would be sent to the Hydra stable.
The Hydra detention wasn't a casual thing, how rarely was it used that even a troublemaker like Fenrir would only be accustomed to regular detentions?
This detention after all wasn't even an original thought from Mr Ignis, it instead was invented by the headmaster that came before him, Mr Elowen.
Even Julius and Adrian didn't know they'd be given a Hydra detention, so how would anyone else have known?
Julius was intimately aware with all of these questions, his mind drafting webs of thought that wriggled toward any answer he could conjure.
A new draft of thought suddenly gathered in his minds eye.
According to this theory:
This person wanted Julius dead.
This person has to have extensive knowledge to the school, something too specific for Julius to find through files.
"A person like that, with that kind've of knowledge, means they are someone with time spent in the academy."
Though why would any of the faculty want him dead?
Thus Julius immediately targeted the students.
All of the first years were crossed out, even that Adrian Zephyr.
Not only did Julius know that Adrian had about as much proficiency in alchemy as an ape striking rock with stone, but all of the first years were too fresh in the academy to have known such tiny things.
Most first years didn't know a rank 1 magic formula! Let alone such niche information.
Instead, Julius's mind peered toward second years.
His minds eye immediately flashed with a second year student he'd just finished dealing with in the cafeteria, Alyssa.
She was more dragon than human, with skin full of red scales like a warning sign.
While the scales underneath her limbs were a gentle polarising turquoise, spreading on her palms, under her arms and her collar.
Julius immediately dispelled the thought, overlooking her submission in the face of Thurid's reputation, Julius could comfortably bet her alchemy wouldn't suffice either.
"Alchemy…" Julius murmured to himself suddenly, his eyes distantly facing the sun on the verge of collapse from his line of sight.
People with time in the academy? Wouldn't alchemy be the easiest way to differentiate those with experience and those without, not including special cases like Julius of course.
Though with that in mind, looking for people with time in the academy, one wouldn't have to look far.
"A third year..?"
…
The suns dwindling rays gathered through a window, shining into a dark brown office with a row of bookshelves one side, a obsidian desk opposite.
A multi-coloured fur rug stood in the center of the space, infront of a desk.
The desk was more like a slab of dark rock than anything that could be considered a desk.
A man made of dark obsidian hunched over this desk.
He had firm black cheekbones, with faint glowing lines hidden in the structure of his his rough face where two red eyes sat like burning coals.
His brow ran deep over his eyes like an obsidian bridge, furrowing tensely to the point it showed off the subtle cracks in his rock skin.
His hair was a mess of curly molten lines impossibly sweeping across his rock forehead, wearing a grand black waistcoat framing a deep navy-blue shirt.
He squiggled pen line neatly onto a line riddled parchment, addressed to the former headmaster.
The letter read:
"Dear Mr Elowen, I hope you are well. I'm writing to talk about some students I'm having a hard time with. I thought about what you would have done, and well… I remembered something, when you used that Hydra detention-"
Nathaniel Ignis's hand paused, his burning eyes fluttering shut, like two blast doors made from rock, as he recalled an image.
A young man with dark skin, as dark as charcoal, as smooth as porcelain, with white hair bunched tightly at the back of his head.
Whenever he looked at Julius, this image flashed in his mind.
The first time was when he pulled the boy out of class, meeting his gaze in the hallway.
"-I think I just need some advice." Words that Mr Ignis had never said before in his life.
"Your student, Mr Ignis."
End of chapter 33